Story: Bienvenidos a Miami

There always seems to be a conga line in this city. I’m wandering around the upscale evening glimmer of Coconut Grove on a Saturday night. Well-heeled sidewalk diners gulp tangy mojitos, chatting about fashion and boating, trying to ignore the pleas of passing panhandlers. Conversation flows easily in and out of Spanish. Above the laughter and clinking of glasses, I first hear the drums. Several blocks away, there is a conga line, probably one hundred bodies long, snaking its way through a block party promoting a Brazilian liquor that tastes like lime tequila. I’m sipping free samples for only a minute when a samba dancer, clad in a glittery bikini and feather plumed hat, pulls me into the conga line. Hips are wiggling, percussion is pulsing, singers are trilling. Everyone is smiling. It’s also January and there isn’t a jacket in sight. Welcome to Miami.

The last time I visited Miami there was also a conga line. This one was expected however, part of the Calle Ocho Festival that happens every March on Little Havana’s main street. The grand finale of this week-long celebration of Latin culture is a million-person street party; music, food, family and history converge on one of the country’s most vibrant ethnic enclaves. Not only is it the perfect recipe for a conga line, it's the ideal setting for a travel experience unlike any other in the United States.

Miami and its glamorous sibling city of Miami Beach have nicknames that are as telling as any visitor brochure. The Gateway of the Americas. The Capital of Latin America. The Cruise Capital of the World. The Million Dollar Sandbar. But the most appropriate may be "The Magic City," first used when the Florida land boom of the early 1900s catapulted Miami into the national imagination. South Florida was a place of fantasy, limitless development possibility, a little slice of tropical paradise on the edge of one of the world’s largest swamps.

Residents and visitors have flocked here ever since, looking for their own version of Miami magic. In South Beach, where every fourth person on the street could be a professional model, people from all walks of life bask in the sun and bathwater warm water by day, before they revel in the glamorous art deco neon nightlife. In Little Havana, the epicenter of Miami’s rich Latin and Hispanic history, Cuban grandfathers take a break from hand rolling cigars to play raucous games of dominoes under the dappled shade of old banyan trees. In a dozen other, ever-evolving neighborhoods like Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, bohemians and boutiques come and go with the ocean wind. And in every quarter there are healthy remnants of Miami’s beginnings as a metropolis in the American south; mouth watering BBQ joints, a shameless love affair with football and leathery sport fishermen and duck hunters towing boats behind pickup trucks.

But far and away, the most enchanting aspect of Miami is the easy confluence of American and Latin cultures that happens here. While the rest of the country grapples with the ethics and consequences of immigration and English as a second language, Miami has long since integrated them into its urban fabric. Not at all surprising, when you consider that 65% of the city’s population identifies itself as Hispanic or Latin. The result is that visiting Miami feels a lot like traveling to another country, though without the logistical hassle. There are exotic new foods to sample, foreign language phrases to learn, colorful markets to negotiate and all of it happens pretty close to the equator, somewhere between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades wilderness, where the sun is always shining and the breeze never slows. Miami is a smorgasbord of the familiar and the foreign for the open-minded traveler.

This Saturday night conga line in Coconut Grove is starting to wind down, but it’s early and there’s plenty more to see. Tonight there will be glitzy hotel bars on Ocean Drive, featuring the best see-and-be-seen people watching outside of Los Angeles. Tomorrow there will be leisurely browsing in the shops and cafes of Little Havana, stopping to sip twenty-five cent Cuban cafecitos from streetside counters. Night will come again and there will undoubtedly be music somewhere, and dancing. Music and dancing probably means another conga line that you won’t be able to resist. And why should you? Come to Miami, join the conga, but unless you’re crossing an ocean to get here, leave your passport behind – Miami is as American as apple pie. Served with Cuban coffee, of course.